CHAPTER SIX
Although she’d seen Mick’s Escalade on their circular driveway, he was nowhere to be found downstairs. So she made her way upstairs.
And there was Mick, lying in bed, under cover, in their master bedroom.
The cover was pulled down along his waist, revealing his bare chest, and he had one hand behind his head, and his other hand scrolling through his text messages.
It was so strange to see him in bed before midnight that Roz automatically assumed he was ill.
“Good evening,” she said. “Welcome back.”
He looked her up and down with a look in his eyes that proved he missed her, and then he exhaled. Roz was always his place of refuge when the world wore him down. He could only hope she wasn’t full of drama tonight too. “You’re okay?”
She nodded. “I’m good. But what’s up with you?”
Was he unable to shield his it anymore? “Why would something be up with me?”
“You’re in bed this early,” Roz said as she walked further into their room, closing the double doors behind her. “I can’t recall the last time you were in bed this early.” She began removing her clothes so she could take a shower. “When did you get back in town?”
“Around five.”
And he didn’t bother to call and let her know. But that was typical Mick. “Another long day?”
He looked back at his phone. “Every day. You?”
“Every day.”
After kicking off her shoes and removing her blouse and her pants, she tossed her phone on the nightstand and sat on the bed beside him in her bra and panties. “I had dinner with Nikki. I would have come home to have dinner with you if I knew you was going to be back in town early.”
He said nothing, so she went for it. “We decided to take a girls’ trip.”
Mick didn’t look away from his phone. “Who’s we?”
“Nikki and me. I just told you I had dinner with her. We’re going on a girls’ trip.”
Mick glanced at her as if it was presumptuous of her to assume he’d let her go on some trip, and then he looked back at his phone. “Where to?”
“The Essence Festival in New Orleans.”
Roz knew Mick didn’t view it as a big deal because she’d gone to the festival a few times in the past. But on his terms. Which meant flying there, on his plane, with heavy security.
Driving there with Nikki alone would never be on his terms. Which was why Roz was hesitant to tell him that part. But she knew she had to.
“We’re leaving tomorrow afternoon.” No response from Mick. “That’s why I need to let her know tonight that I’m going.”
Still no response.
“We’re driving,” Roz finally said.
And that was when Mick looked at her. “What do you mean you’re driving?”
“We decided it would be neat to drive to the festival this year rather than fly. I just wanted to let you know.” She was about to stand up and go to the bathroom, but Mick pulled her back down. And continued staring at her. “What?” she asked him.
“You must be out of your gotdamn mind if you think I’m going to let you drive twenty hours anywhere.”
“It’s not twenty hours and it’s not just me driving. It’ll be me and Nikki driving.”
“No.”
“It’ll be fun, Mick.”
“Didn’t I say no?”
Now Roz was getting hot. “Why the hell not, Mick? I’m a grown-ass woman. I can go anywhere I wanna go.”
“Not if I say your grown-ass isn’t going,” Mick fired back. But then his tone softened the way it only did for Roz. “Unless you have a driver and a full detail with you,” he added, “you aren’t going.”
Roz frowned. “But we don’t want any of your goons following us everywhere we go. No way, Mick. You know how I hate that shit. I’d rather not go at all than to have somebody following me like I’m some prisoner.”
“Then you aren’t going.”
“I won’t be by myself, Mick, goodness! Nikki will be with me. You trust her enough to be second-in-command of the entire Sinatra Crime Family, but you don’t trust her enough to protect me? Although I can take care of myself and don’t need anybody’s protection.”
But Mick was back to scrolling through his text messages and didn’t respond. As if that conversation was already over as far as he was concerned.
But it wasn’t over for Roz. She felt as if he was being unreasonable. “Nikki will be with me, Mick,” she said again. She knew she was losing the fight when he went hardline on her. “It’s something I want to do for myself. It’s something I’m going to do for myself.”
Mick gave Roz a chilling look. “Don’t play with me, woman. I said you’re not going and that’s final.”
“But why not, Mick?”
Mick was angry now. “Because you’re my wife and I’m not risking that!”
Even Roz knew it wasn’t easy for Mick to admit he would be scared for her. She stared at him.
“You either go with a driver and a full security detail,” he continued, “or you aren’t going.”
“I’m not having your goons following me to something I want to do for myself.”
“Then your ass is not going. And that’s final!” he said firmly. Which everybody in the entire family knew that final for Mick meant final.
Roz was seething, but she knew it meant final too.
That was why she went into their ensuite bathroom, slammed the door, and then called to tell Nikki she couldn’t make it.
She didn’t tell Nikki why, but Nikki immediately said that four-letter word named Mick.
Roz didn’t respond, but her silence said it all.
Then she ended the call and took a long hot shower.
When she returned to the bedroom naked, her phone began ringing before she could make it to her lingerie drawer to put on her nightgown. But when she went to the night stand and looked at the Caller ID and saw that it was the actress that had been fired, she ignored the call.
She turned to head to her lingerie drawer when Mick grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back to his side. When he saw the anguish on her face, he tossed his phone onto the nightstand too, pulled his covers back, and lifted her up and on top of his naked body. Then he covered them both.
Roz stared at him. His one sleepy eye was drooped especially low.
Which meant he was in some form of distress himself.
As if he didn’t have enough on his plate running an international corporation and actively involved with his syndicate although he didn’t have to be so involved.
But he held himself ultimately responsible for all of it.
She hated that she might have been adding to those responsibilities by trying to do something she knew would worry him. Which gave her some sense of guilt.
But she’d rather not go to Essence than to go under heavy guard. That was too intrusive for her. She laid her head on his chest.
But as she laid there, and as he rubbed her hair and soothed her, she knew she was soothing him too. Because his hand made its way inside her panties. Because she could feel his slowly-expanding erection beneath her. He needed relief even more than she did.
He lifted up her chin as he rubbed her ass, and looked into her eyes with a look of love she understood. Because that look was usually the closest to I love you he was ever going to get.
But Roz never gave a damn about words anyway. Men always told her what she wanted to hear. Mick never did. But in his actions she knew he loved her. And loved her deeply.
But she was nobody’s fool. She knew he was deeply conflicted too. He had so much shit on his plate and so many women wanting what he had to give that it was never easy being Mick. There were always minefields waiting for him.
But what Mick felt made Roz stand apart was that she always trusted him to navigate those minefields and still manage to do the right thing.
Other women accepted that he would never do the right thing, anyway, and that was fine by them.
Just as long as they belonged to him. But it was never fine by Roz. And Mick respected that.
After continuing to stare into her beautiful eyes and rub her tight, smooth butt, he kissed her.
For several minutes they kissed each other with that slow-burning passion that would crescendo into him entering her. But not with a thrust, which was his usual way, but with a glide.
And then he did her with that slow, sweet, needful love that kept them both on the verge of cumming. And then, when they did cum, they came with small, rolling orgasms that wouldn’t quit. But eventually, Mick needed more.
He eased Roz off of him and laid her on her back, and then he got on top of her. And that was when their slow burn became a frenetic, bedspring-singing pounding. Which was their normal way. Which was how they both elevated their orgasms.
And then Mick poured hard into Roz. He poured all that he had left into her with such deep-down grunts and groans that he took them both off of the edge of that cliff, and all the way over it.
They went fast, furious, and hard. Until they were so drained, and so full, that they could hardly move a muscle.
Mick laid on top of her for several more minutes as his penis couldn’t stop throbbing. As if it wanted to go another round with her again. But he didn’t have the juice. And then he finally eased out of her rolled off. He pulled her back on top of him.
And they laid there, attempting to regain their equilibrium again after such a high.
Until Mick, too exhausted to even speak, fell asleep. Which Roz was pleased to see. She could tell he was truly spent.
It remained peaceful, and Roz fell asleep herself, until early that next morning when Mick’s phone began ringing with a ring that changed everything.